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The one question that perhaps should have been asked in this case from the " Ultimate Crime " topic, was exactly where Whiston obtained the gun. The answer would gone some way to understanding why he failed to appreciate, that death would result from just firing it. Could he have believed it was loaded with a faulty charge, i.e. altered ammunition. There's no dispute of course, that he fired the old weapon. It can be safely assumed that it was an old pistol, by something he said in his statement. " the bullets were too small for the barrel, so I hammered them between two bricks to make them a tighter fit. " This is a clear indication that the barrel was very worn, the bullets no longer fitting the bore. The velocity from such a weapon would have been serverely reduced, and not a great deal better, even after the lead bullets had been reshaped. Did someone tell him that he wouldn't actually kill anyone if he fired the gun at them, and is that why he fired before he grabbed the money bag. When he was arrested shortly afterwards, the pistol had been reloaded. It was crammed almost to the end of the barrel with the charge, leaving very little room for the insertion of a bullet, and very little travel for the shot to gain much velocity. Loaded properly, the pistol, old as it was, would have taken half the victims head off. Up to the moment, that Alfred Meredith died, Whiston believed the poor man was only slightly wounded, somebody had given him false information about the weapon. He may have only hammered the bullets, to stop them falling out of the barrel as he carried the gun, and if so, he was a very unfortunate man. And so for that matter, was Meredith.

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A wonderful thing is work, I could watch it all day. ( See my Blog entry )